How to Write a Thesis Statement for Beginners

How to Write a Thesis Statement for Beginners

Write a Thesis Statement Step by Step

If you are pursuing your PhD, then writing a thesis statement can be very challenging. Whether this is your first thesis or the tenth, writing the Thesis Statement can never be easy. The reason is a Thesis Statement is a summed up concept of the whole research process. In a single sentence, you need to express what exactly your research is going to explore and derive. However, if you allow yourself to undergo the following thinking process, then you will know how to think about creating the most appropriate Thesis Statement for your thesis.

This article will guide the process to write a thesis statement for beginners. Through this article, you will gain an insight into the systematic thinking procedure to write a thesis statement.

Find the Purpose

At the forefront, make yourself very assured about the research field that you are going to explore. Always remember that to write a thesis statement, you must understand the purpose of your thesis. Stay focused on hunting down the purpose of your research. Your research must be well supported by your way of accumulating knowledge. Keep asking yourself the following questions:

• Why do I want to explore this particular field of knowledge?

• What are the issues that are troubling my mind?

• How can I understand the core concern of these issues?

• How am I supposed to offer an innovative way of resolving the detected concern?

• What benefits my research will bring to this research field?

As you start attaining answers to these questions, you will start realising that there is something unique about the way you are thinking. This feeling of gaining a unique way of knowing a subject is the first step of gaining hold over the right Thesis Statement for your research.

Jotting Down

As you start realising that, you can track down the purpose of your research, start jotting down all those points that make great sense to you. Indulge yourself in brainstorming sessions with professors, teachers, and even scholarly friends. The entire brainstorming process will be well defined only when you will have a series of points that are related to your research field. Enlist all kinds of issues that you think are interesting for your thesis. Make a whole list of relevant concerns. Just keep on jotting down all those ideas and thoughts that are troubling you. There is no need to follow any pattern. Just that you should be able to keep a track of whatever you are thinking, and jotting down helps in keeping the track.

Identify Type

Consider reading and re-reading all the points that you have jotted down. Explore former researchers in the same domain. Soon you will realise what exactly you are trying to do. Make a firm decision after identifying the type of thesis statement that you need. 

There are 5 major kinds of Thesis Statements. These are –

• Assert Specific Cause

• Evaluate Results

• Explain Effects

• Assert Argument

• Expository in Nature

Assert Specific Cause

There are research works that seek to find reasons for a prevailing issue. The cause-seek approach generates solutions to the research.

For instance, your research might focus in understand the causes that lead to hypertension among the working middle-aged male population in a developing nation.

This is a cause-seeking approach; the Thesis Statement must focus on expressing this category of the research approach.

Evaluate Results

There are Thesis Statements that seek to evaluate some of the derived results and thereby try to prove that a better version of the same application can strive.

For instance, if your research approach is trying to evaluate the use of Windows 10, then you must be able to evaluate every possible feature of it. After evaluating its features, you must be able to suggest a better version of Windows 10.

Explain Effects

The points that you have jotted down can lead you to the actual purpose of your research. You might find that you are trying to explain the effects of a certain incident. In such a scenario, your thesis statement must make a clear declaration of the scenario and its possible effects that you want to explain.

For instance, there are innumerable job losses during the outbreak of COVID-19. As you try to explain the impacts of COVID-19 on such job losses, then you will be able to find alternatives for such issues. 

Assert Argument

If you discover that your Thesis Statement is trying to assert a particular argument then it must be expressed in the most systematically arranged manner.

For instance, if you are arguing that Women should be offered high profile political and corporate designations, then your Thesis Statement must use the keywords like- Women, corporate, high profile, political, designation, etc.

Expository in Nature

There are research works that demand expository mode of explanations and investigations. In such research work, the researcher intends to describe some event or development so that the future can be secured.

For instance, if your research intends to understand the past recessions, then a clear explanation of the same can prevent future recessions. In this pursuit, your Thesis Statement must comprises of all those words like macro economy, period, GDP, economic decline, etc.

Narrow Down

Always consider extensive hours of reading. Read many journal articles, peer-reviewed articles, and books related to your field of research. A voracious habit of reading will bring in the best kind of research in the respective field. As you read more the more precise, you will get with your thinking process. All the issues and concerns that you have enlisted during the brainstorming sessions will start getting resolved by the former literature. The more you will read the more you will understand the topic. The more you will understand the topic the more you will be able to narrow down the purpose of your research. An appropriate road map for the process of narrowing down can be illustrated as-

Road Map to Write a Thesis Statement for Beginners:

This is an amazing exercise, which adds great food for the human intellect.   

Selective Keywords

The systematic analytical approach must remain consistent as you follow the aforementioned road map for narrowing down the research approach. There is a need for a comprehensive understanding of the subject and the related relevant issues. As the issues will be identified, there will be space for the Research Question. While considering all the factors representing your research question you can now lead yourself towards the construct of the Thesis Statement. Make a list of all those words that represent your research question. Arrange those words most selectively and systematically. Write a thesis statement in the most appropriate manner. And, Voilà! you get your research statement.